This invention relates to an improvement of my U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,218, titled SPRING LOADED ASCENDER, directed to a safety appliance releasable attachable to an upright safety cable and adapted to clamp upon a cable to prevent falling of a workman climbing an elevated structure, rock and mountain climbers, firemen and the like. The improvement provides a hinged ascender housing for easy loading a rope or cable and a spring assembly for quick release to convert from spring loaded to free running.
Since the developement and patenting of my Spring Loaded Ascender, it has been realized that loading of a rope or cable between the ascender housing and brake lever was awkward and time consuming. The results of the loading could be critical since at this point in time the user has no safety line to prevent falling. Therefore, it is important to reduce the loading time and to provide a simple to use loading system. In a work environment where workmen or other persons are climbing an elevated structure and making several connections and disconnections of safety clamp appliances, time and ease of assembly are critical to their safety. Heretofore there has not been an ascender that provided such safety to the user.
There are also occasions where a safety clamp appliance needs to be spring loaded in order to maintain constant gripping of the safety cable as in the case of industrial workers. Other occasions require a safety clamp appliance which is easily slidable along the safety cable and, therefore, the safety clamp appliance should not be spring loaded. (Such occasions occur in mountain climbing and cave exploration). The prior art safety clamp appliances are either spring loaded or not spring loaded. There is no one single appliance that can be both spring loaded or not spring loaded, except for U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,218, issued to the present inventor. The differences between the present invention and my issued patent are the housing, the mount for the spring, and the spring. In the patent, a first coil spring is fastened to the brake lever 30 and to a keeper ring, a second spring extends from the keeper ring to a fixed place on the housing. The keeper ring holds the spring under tension by hooking on a post on the housing. In order to use the appliance without spring loading, the keeper ring is removed from the post to remove the tension on the brake.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,218, lists prior art patents which are spring loaded. These patents show the use of torsion springs that are fixed to the appliances in such a way that they are not easily removed. An improved single clamp appliance which may be used in a spring loaded mode or a non-spring loaded mode by removing a pin would be very useful in industrial applications and in mountain climbing or cave exploration, particularly in terms of savings in time and money.
One other prior art U.S. Pat. No. is 1,244,043, to Euler.